Schulte, P A · Reviews of infectious diseases · 1991 · DOI
This paper explains how scientists should evaluate biological markers—measurable signs in blood, tissue, or other body samples—before using them in ME/CFS research. The authors provide a practical checklist that researchers should follow to make sure these markers are reliable, meaningful, and won't be affected by other factors. This helps ensure that future ME/CFS studies measure things accurately and produce trustworthy results.
For ME/CFS research to move forward, scientists need reliable ways to measure disease activity and biological changes. This paper provides a quality-control framework that helps ensure future ME/CFS biomarker studies will be rigorous and comparable, building stronger evidence for understanding the disease's biological basis and potentially identifying diagnostic tests.
This paper does not identify any specific ME/CFS biomarkers or prove that particular biological markers are valid for the disease. It is a methodological guide, not an empirical study, so it does not present new data about ME/CFS biology itself. The checklist is advisory and does not guarantee that any marker will ultimately be useful in clinical practice.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
Contribute
Private, reviewed by a human. Not a public comment thread.